Hello puppet builders and puppet fans. Years ago I posted a tutorial on how to make a puppet through my blog Puppet 101. Now I'm going to be auctioning that puppet for a good cause!

For those that haven't heard, former Muppeteer and Puppet School founder Michael Earl, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. Sadly, he doesn't have health insurance, so the puppetry community is trying to raise money to help pay for his treatment. A former student of his set up this site to help him out: bit.ly/OE3p50
Here at Swazzle, we wanted to do what we could, so we're having a Workshop Sale! We'll be selling puppet building materials including fur, fabric, feathers and fleece, puppet costumes, puppet props, audio equipment including speakers, amps and microphones. There will also be a silent auction where you could win the above mentioned puppet: http://swazzle.com/blogs/2006/03/friday-fun-meet-ratchet.html

When: Saturday, October 20th, 8am to 4pm
Where: Swazzle Workshop, 4525 San Fernando Rd., Unit F, Glendale CA, 90035
Free street parking available.
This is for a good cause, and 100% of the money raised will go to the Michael Earl cancer fundraiser. Click the link, and please help me spread the word: http://swazzle.com/wp/?p=1460

I'm looking at SmoothOn products, and considering spending my last $200 on some 2 part foam epoxy, but not sure if it will work. Is there another source for foam epoxy, as SmoothOn products are good, but expensive. I went through one batch but the mouths were too hard to move. (I'm trying a fluffier foam next time...it's rated by how much the foam expands, thus how flexible it is.) To stop the foam from sticking, I learned to use non-water based silicone caulk, since sticking was the big issue. The troll in Labyrinth has some of the qualities of my first attempt, as the foam seems a little too thick as I want a flexible face that a puppeteer can creatively shape from inside the head.

I've found that 1/2 inch foam seems to work best for me. It's thin enough that it's plyable enough but it also has a form to work with. I want to say most people use between 1/2-1 inch for basic making. You'd want thicker foam it you're gonna carve features.

I've written two articles that may be helpful as a starting point, a guide to puppet building resources that includes lots of information on puppet building books, kits, videos and links to web sites with lots of information.

Hi,
Great post, I would like to ask for permission to share this post on my blog along with your name. Please post any other details in your reply that you want included in the blog post. I can also post links to your websites if you have any.
Waiting for your response.
Thank you.

Sorry for not replying sooner Joe! I don't log in to the forum as often as I used to.

The web site that had those articles is offline and quite old (it was for a Project I did back in 2003). They were licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licenses, so you're more than welcome to repost them. Please just credit them to "Andrew" and provide a link to my blog at www.PuppetVision.info since the original site is no longer online.

Hello! Been reading bit and pieces of this forum and decided to finally invest in making a puppet. I want to start by making a Grover replica. Mostly because I wanted one since I was three. So I found the fur, read how to put in the arm rods, and Adams video tutorial is perfect for the head. Big fan of his stuff too btw! But the body is what is kind of confusing me. He has a belly, his arms look super long, and his hands look over sized. I wanted to invest in a Project Puppet pattern but don't know which one to get. So far im thinking his body is like a sphere with a cone shape on top. Any advice is greatly appreciated. You all do amazing work!

Hey jeremy, no one has answered so I will through my two cents in. It depends a lot on what sort of puppet you are building. If you are using Grey Seal Puppet's 3 piece head method I would suggest foam core, if you are doing something from Project Puppet simple series I would go with gasket rubber. I like gasket rubber because it's flexable and you can contort it to make the face more expressive. You can get foam core from any craft store and sheets of gasket rubber from most hardware stores in the plumbing isle.

I've written two articles that may be helpful as a starting point, a guide to puppet building resources that includes lots of information on puppet building books, kits, videos and links to web sites with lots of information.

A couple of people have messaged me recently about these links, which were shared here on the forum almost a decade ago. I know longer have the Bear-Town.com domain, but I have a similar section of resources on my PuppetVision web site (go to that link and look under "Resources" in the menu).

The Tumbles P. Bear Project tutorial isn't online any more, but you can find most of it is on the Internet Archive if you'd really like to see it (images may be missing and some links may not work).